Lia finally had it all figured out. That was until that one
traumatic day. A day that would change everything. Nothing would ever be the
same again. No normal, rational thinking person would do that, would they? Could
they?
My Review:
I really enjoyed L.V. Robinson’s writing style, I just wish
she had put a bit (okay, fine, a lot) more detail into this book. There isn’t
really a point to this story, lesson to be learned or inspiration to harness, it’s just one woman’s
story; and it’s not even that unique a story.
Robinson opens with the climactic scene of Lia being removed
from the home she shares with her leave-in boyfriend and their blended family.
From there, we flash back to a seventeen-year-old Lia who has just moved into
an apartment a few blocks away from her family’s home. Robinson then quickly
takes us through the decisions that bring Lia to the opening scene. This entire
novelette is 62 pages long with medium font and loose line spacing. A lot of
important yet amazingly flat characters are introduced. Even Lia the main
character is a mere skeleton of a character. All the reader really knows about
her is that she believes in God. The title, He Answered, is a reference to God
answering Lia’s prayers.
When Vivi and Siddalee Walker, an unforgettable mother-daughter team, get into a savage fight over a New York Times article that refers to Vivi as a "tap-dancing child abuser," the fallout is felt from Louisiana to New York to Seattle. Siddalee, a successful theater director with a huge hit on her hands, panics and postpones her upcoming wedding to her lover and friend, Connor McGill. Vivi's intrepid gang of lifelong girlfriends, the Ya-Yas, sashay in and conspire to bring everyone back together.
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Divine Secrets was really hard to get into. It wasn't until around page 100 of the 356-page novel that I really started to enjoy the story. I think this is because I found Sidda's story a bit too staged. It doesn't make sense that she's putting off her wedding to the man of her dreams because all of a sudden she feels like she doesn't know how to love. What does her mom's breakdown thirty years before have to do with her marrying the man of her dreams?
I would have been happy to read about all of the lives and experiences of the Ya-Yas (especially Vivi) coming of age in Louisiana in the 1930s onwards. I really enjoyed all of the flashback sections. It was interesting to see how Vivi's attitude towards the black people in her life develops, shifts and changes throughout her life. I've gained two things from this novel: a desire to visit Louisiana and a desire to read Gone with the Wind.
Rebecca Wells did a wonderful job with the character of Vivi, she really came to life. I understood her motivation and her desires and drivers. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Sidda or the other Ya-Yas. She provided just enough tidbits about the lives of the other Ya-Yas to spark a desire in her readers to know more about these quirky ladies.
It's 1968. Frannie and Doris, sisters and spinsters, have been taking care of their father for their entire adult lives. When he dies, they hit the road in their Plymouth Valiant to take a much needed vacation. Frannie, the novel's narrator, longs to continue her reclusive life with her sister. But Doris, cut free of responsibility, wants to raise hell and get laid. Their journey through the changing landscape of America - civil rights marches, the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago - an elegy to a lost time in the United States.
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Spinsters. It's not a word you hear very often now a days. When most people think of spinsters they think about old grey-haired cat ladies; not women in their early to mid-thirties. Dictionary.com defines a spinster as "awomanstillunmarriedbeyondtheusualageof marrying." This story is set in 1968, when the average marrying age, for women, is 20.8 years, so according to that time period, Frannie and Doris at 32 and 35 years of age, respectively, are spinsters.
I really enjoyed this novel for several reasons. Pagan Kennedy's characters go beyond the spinster stereotypes. Frannie has known since she was a young girl that she wanted to lead a spinster lifestyle after seeing her mother always frantic trying to take care of a husband and children. Doris is trapped and desperately trying to escape her spinsterhood, she's just never been able to find a man she wants to settle down with.
The character development is amazing. Frannie goes from a prudish, unforgiving and jealous woman to a more relaxed, accepting and understanding person. Doris doesn't change much but she come to appreciate her sister's practicality and even learns to rely on her strengths.
Jessa Bell shocked the hell out of her three best friends when she announced she was having an affair with one of their husbands - then refused to say which one. She has been reveling in watching her friends self-destruct while trying to figure out which dog of a husband has been getting some on the side.
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I can usually find at least one good thing to say about every book I read. I can't find a single positive thing to say about Niobia Bryant's Mistress No More. So, I present...
Five reasons NOT to read Niobia Bryant's Mistress No More:
1. Foul language and cheesy writing
Pleasure growled a little as he used nothing but his strong hips to ease the tip of his dick inside her. Her pussy lips closed around him. Her juices caused her flesh to smack lightly in the air. p. 7
Tears filled Aria's eyes because of how complete she felt with Kingston atop her, his dick buried deep within her walls. They always fit together like two puzzle pieces. p. 45
2. Wacky premise
Jessa Bell sends her three friends a text message saying that she's having an affair with one of their husbands, but doesn't say which one. She does this because the women did not trust her to be around their husbands after her own husband passed away. Her three friends' lives fall to pieces as they deal with the text message. Aria Hall accuses her husband, Kingston, even going so far as to check up on him when he's not with her and search his things. Jaime, who's husband Eric IS having the affair with Jessa Bell is already separated from her husband. He caught her having sex with a male stripper. Renee has bigger problems.; her husband, Jackson, has just announced that he had a one-night stand and the woman is pregnant.
3. Gratuitous product placement
"What, Eric?" she sighed, sounding as bored as she truly was with his constant attempts at reconciliation. She reached for her monogrammed Louis Vuitton cigarette case and lighter. p.4
Aria bit the IMAN gloss from her lips as she closed her eyes and spoke the truth about how she felt. p. 11
Renee sang, completely off-key as she reached for the bottle of Patron and poured herself a hefty shot. p.14
4. The mistress name is Jessa Bell. As in Jezebel, the biblical whore.
5. The rehashing of the black woman vs. white woman debate.
"The fact is Jackson had an affair with another woman and who cares if she's blue, black, green, or white. It doesn't make it more wrong because she's white ." p. 106
"Listen, there's not a damn thing me and Kingston haven't done and mean nothing, even down to golden showers... but there is this idea white chicks are complacent and giving and serving and we're just the angry black bitches who don't let a man be a man and ya-ya-ya and all that dumb shit." p.107
If you decide to read this book, don't say I didn't warn you.
From the book cover From the moment Emma Sutton walks into the FitzCoopers auction house, the disgraced media darling knows exactly what she wants: an antique dining table. What she gets is a chance to set things right. Fresh from a yearlong stretch in prison, Emma finds her life just as she left it - filled with glittering business successes, bruising personal defeats, rolling television cameras, and awkward Sunday dinners at home. She needs a clean slate - a second chance that might be provided by two unlikely saviors: Benjamin Blackman, a terminally charming social worker and Emma's part-time assistant, and one of Benjamin's most heartbreaking wards, an overweight little girl from Queens named Gracie. ------
Philip Galanes' Emma's Table starts off as a pleasant ripped-from-the-headlines story about a disgraced domestic diva (think Martha Stewart). About a quarter of the way through, once all of the characters have been introduced, it quickly disappoints - all of the characters are hollow.
Emma Sutton, the disgraced domestic diva, is an unimaginative copy of Martha Stewart right down to the ex-husband, daughter and the one-year prison sentence for tax evasion and lying to the Feds. Benjamin Blackman is not in the least bit 'charming', he's actually clueless and spineless. Gracie's character is immature for a nine-year-old of above average intelligence. Tina, Gracie's mother is the most believable character. It's easy to emphasize with her feelings of failure because of her inability to keep Gracie's weight under control.
Gracie's supposed weight issues are unbelievable. She 20 pounds overweight at just a little over 4 feet tall and described as obese. I have a hard time believing that 20 pounds can class a child as obese, maybe chubby would be a better description?
The last chapter is a cop out, plain and simple. At the end of the previous chapter the plot reaches climax,when Emma finds out her husband is living a separate life in a secret apartment, and Tina confronts Benjamin about his accusation that she's feeding Gracie junk food to intentionally keep her weight up. Then in the next chapter, which takes place a week later, all of these crises have been wrapped up nice and neat.
On the eve of the monsoons, in a remote Indian village, Kavita gives birth to Asha. But in a culture that favours sons, the only way for Kavita to save her newborn daughter's life is to give her away. It is a decision that will haunt her and her husband for the rest of their lives, even after the arrival of their cherished son. Halfway around the globe, Somer, an American doctor, decides to adopt a child after making the wrenching discovery that she will never have one of her own. When she and her husband Krishnan see a photo of baby Asha from a Mumbai orphanage, they are overwhelmed with emotion for her. Somer knows life will change with the adoption, but is convinced that the love they already feel will overcome all obstacles. Interweaving the stories of Kavita, Somer, and Asha, "Secret Daughter" poignantly explores the emotional terrain of motherhood, loss, identity, and love, as witnessed through the lives of two families - one Indian, one American - and the child that indelibly connects them. ---------- Secret Daughter was recommended by one of my former coworkers. It was suppose to be the July book for our book club, sadly our club didn't make it past February. I'm really glad I decided to keep it on my personal reading list because Author Shilpi Somaya Gowda's first novel is all-consuming. From the first page to the last, every word is written with such care. The food, the stifling humidity and congestion of Mumbai, the stench of the Dharavi, the opulence of an upscale Indian wedding - Ms.Gowda's descriptions are so vivid one can't help but feel like a fly on the wall.
Secret Daughter touches on a lot of controversial topics while avoiding the pitfalls of sermonizing. On the surface this novel is about motherhood but under a very thin cover it's about India. At the midway point of the novel, Asha takes over the narration, and provides an honest look at India. I found myself falling in love with the country described as "a five-star pile of contradictions."
In terms of the plot and dominate themes, Secret Daughter examines the fear, desires and hopes that govern the decisions we make and the reality of having to live with our choices. In addition to the obvious theme of motherhood, the novel explores the contrast between Indian and American culture (specifically gender relations), the contrast between wealth and poverty in India and what it means to be a family.
Hands down, Secret Daughter is one the best books I've read this year. I highly recommend this novel to all of female readers.
5
From the book cover Woman on the Edge of Time is the fascinating story of Connie Ramos, a Chicana woman in her mid-thirties, living in New York and labeled insane, and committed to a mental institution. But the truth is that Connie is overwhelmingly sane, heroically sane, and tuned in to the future.
Connie is able to communicate with the year 2137. Two totally different ways of life are competing. One is beautiful - communal, nonsexist, environmentally pure, open to ritual and magic. The other is horror - totalitarian, exploitative, rigidly technological.
In Connie's struggle to keep the institution's doctors from forcing her into a brain control operation, we find the timeless struggle between beauty and terror, between good and evil... with an astonishing outcome. --------------
Baby Storm's parent would love the world in 2137, as depicted by Marge Piercy in this hybrid chic-lit science fiction novel. In this future people are very close to being genderless. Males and females still have the same external sex organs they have today, but women no longer give birth (all babies are created in incubators) and men can choose to breastfeed by taking lactate pills. Gender titles don't exist, everyone is referred to as 'per' short for person. Bisexuality and homosexuality are on par with heterosexual relations.
Woman on the Edge of Time has been labelled an angry and violent text. I feel it's more honest and unpretentious than anything. Connie is angry and violent because society has backed her into a corner:
If only they had left me something!" she whispered. Still trembling, she thought, If only they had left me Martin, or Claud, or Angelina, if they had even left me Dolly and Nita, I would have minded my own business. I'd have bowed my head and kept down. I was not born and raised to fight battles, but to be modest and gentle and still. Only one person to love. Just one little corner of loving of my own. For that love I'd borne it all and I'd never have fought back. I would have obeyed. I would have agreed that I'm sick, that I'm sick to be hungry and sick to be lonely and sick to be robbed and used. But you were so greedy, so cruel! One of them, just one, you could have left me! But I have nothing. Why shouldn't I strike back?
Yet her hands shook with fear. She lay cold and trembling, all the night.
Connie is not a naturally violent or angry person. If she were, the thought of intentionally harming the people she thinks are going to cause her death would not keep her up at night trying to come up with non-violent solutions. This is a story about how society can bring out the worse in people, especially when money and technology are in play. The people on the edge of society feel the brunt of society's cruelty. Connie and the other patients who are subjected to the experimental surgery are either minorities, poor or homosexual.
Woman on the Edge of Time is one of the most enjoyable novels I've read in a while. I have no hesitation about recommending this novel. If all science fiction and fantasy novels were like this gripping tale of the future, science fiction and fantasy would be my favourite genre.
From the book cover: Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, was inspired by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s.
Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage the rumours begin, poisoning her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is driven towards madness. -------------- I read the edition with edits, an introduction and notes by Angela Smith.
Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of the mad woman locked in the attic in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, whileexploring the racial inequalities and injustices of the post-colonial world.
The novel is split into three parts.
Part one is set in Jamaica and narrated by Antoinette. We learn about her upbringing, her mother's marriage to Mr. Mason, the fire that killed her brother and her mother's resulting descent into madness, her education at a catholic convent and her arranged marriage, to a man assumed to be Mr.Rochester of Jane Eyre.
Part two is set in Granbois, Dominica. Antoinette is married and her husband takes over the narration. We learn how his mind and heart were poisoned against her and of the beginning of her descent into madness.
Part three is set in England. Antoinette, locked in the attic of the 'great house', resumes the narration. She is now completely mad and closely resembles the madwoman in the attic, as described in Jane Eyre.
I really enjoyed this novel. The fact that a large part is set in Jamaica, my homeland, was definitely part of the appeal. I left Jamaica when I was a young child, so all of my education is North American centered. I don't know a lot about the emancipation act and its affect on the West Indies and Jamaica, so this book offered me a glanced into the experience of the freed slaves and former slave owners.
If you're a regular reader of this blog you probably already know that I enjoy reading about women's issues and historical fiction, this novel is a blend of both of those genres.
My only grievance is with some of the end notes Angela Smith provides. A lot of the notes seem unnecessary. Who needs a definition of shingles or a mango tree? I found the abundance of end notes distracting at times, as I'm not the type of reader who can ignore end notes. Even when I'm positive I know what the end note is going to say, I still flip to the back of the book. Despite this, I am really grateful for the introduction and notes on the emancipation act, Creole and obeah.
Before reading these notes I did not know about the compensation paid to slave owners (£19 per slave, slaves were valued at £35) or the proposed 7-year transition period. I also did not know about the history of the Creole people in the West Indies and Jamaica. I had always assumed that the slave owners where all of British or European descent. It was surreal reading about obeah. It's something I grew up hearing stories about but never took seriously, rolling my eyes when the grown folks would tell stories.
Wide Sargasso Sea is a powerful novel about a young girl caught up in a vicious cycle created by the patriarchal world surrounding her, in a time when the world is going through a metamorphosis. I recommend this book to those who enjoy reading about women's issues, historical fiction and race relations.
5
Movie Trailer for the film adaptation of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea.
From the book cover: Sometimes all you can do is fly away home... When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician's wife - her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. At fifty-seven, she ruefully acknowledge that her job is staying twenty pounds thinner than she was in her twenties and tending to her husband, the senator. Lizzie, the Woodruffs' younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict, whose mantra HALT (Hungary? Angry? Lonely? Tired?) helps her keep her life under control. Still, trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve - a husband, a young son, the perfect home - and yet she's trapped in a loveless marriage. With temptation waiting in one of the ER's exam rooms, she finds herself craving more. After Richard's extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be. -------------
I'm not sure why I put Fly Away Home on my reading list. I think I saw it advertised on a subway poster. It was probably around the time of some sex scandal or another. Anyhow, I read it this past week. It's an alright book but it doesn't fill me with satisfaction, inspire any new realizations about life or leave me wanting more. In fact, I feel like this novel could have been at least a hundred pages shorter.
Porn anyone?
I don't think of myself as a prude but I found the sex scenes a bit too graphic, and they seemed to go on forever. At times I felt myself blushing and praying that no one in the subway car was reading over my shoulders. Weiner's sex scenes are comparable to the stuff I imagine would be found in a porn magazine.
Enough with the foreshadowing already!
Weiner goes over board with foreshadowing; she doesn't give the reader enough credit to pick up on hints. Almost every paragraph starts off with a flashback that inevitably foreshadows the main events of that chapter. In some cases this is good because it's a window into the relationship between the main characters but other times it's just too much. One of those times is when Lizzie discovers she's pregnant. Several pages are spent in a flashback of Lizzie and a high school friend smoking pot and watching I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant; both girls agree they would know if they were pregnant.
The characters are cliches:
Cheating politician
Devoted, wool suit wearing wife
Successful but emotionally cold daughter
Black sheep daughter
Brash, Jewish mother
Need I go on?
Sex Scandals
Society is saturated with sex scandals. Just this week, alone, two major scandals are in the headline. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed the existence of a 10-year-old "love child" that he fathered with a former household staffer. International Monetary Fund Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested and charged with attempted rape. Admittedly, the Strauss-Kahn scandal is a criminal matter but it can still be classified under PEMS (Powerful Entitled Man Syndrome). In contrast to this week's news, the 'scandal' that is the centre of the Fly Away Home plot is boring.
About the author The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel. It was originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963. Plath suffered from clinic depression. It is an accepted theory that The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical with names and places changed. Plath committed suicide in 1963, a month after The Bell Jar was published in the United Kingdom.
Plot Summary
Set in 1953, The Bell Jar is about Ester Greenwood's clinic depression. As the novel opens, Ester is in New York on a one month summer internship at a prominent magazine. As the month comes to an end Ester starts to ponder her future. The few options she has leave her feeling trapped. Upon completely her internship, Ester returns to her home in Massachusetts feeling down. And that feeling increases when her mom tells her that she did not get into a writing course she hoped to enroll in for the rest of the summer. Ester's depression worsens, she sees a psychiatrist, attempts suicide and winds up in an asylum.
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The Bell Jar is a hard novel to get into. At times I found it dragged. In the end, I came to enjoy Plath's subtle way of telling the story. At first I didn't think there was anything wrong with Ester, I thought she was just quirky. I didn't realize she wasn't all there until her last night in New York, when she is almost the victim of date rape. Once she started to decline in happened fast and furious. As her depression worsens, Ester describes herself as feeling trapped under a bell jar. A bell jar is a piece of laboratory equipment used to create a vacuum. In essence, she feels trapped in a vacuum.
Imprisonment is a major theme in this novel. Being a female Ester feels trapped by society's expectations, the consequences of sex and a lack of career choices.
Although times have changed and women have a lot more choices, many of us still feel pressure to live up to society's expectations. It's still expected that women are going to marry and have children, and when they choose not to go down this path, they are described as spinsters, old maids, cat ladies, or their sexual preference is questioned.
The world has gone through a sexual revolution since the 1950s but women still face more consequences when it comes to sexual relations. Just think how many words you've heard to describe women who are believed to be promiscuous. How many words do you know for promiscuous men? Also consider, women in committed relationships are more likely to be responsible for birth control. And when birth control fails, a woman's life definitely changes more than a man's life. Until oral contraceptives are widely available for men and they have the ability to physically bear children, women will always face more consequences in sexual relations.
My point in comparing the 1950s and 2011 is not to stand on a soap box, but merely to explain why I think The Bell Jar is still very relevant almost 50 years after it was first published. Read it if you like, you can only gain knowledge and insight into one of society's taboos - mental illness.
From the book cover: When Ruth Patchett discovers her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy she becomes truly diabolic, embarking on a course of destruction which brings those around her their just desserts and herself an amazing reward. This is the fantasy of the wronged woman made real: wild, funny, true. --------------
Fay Weldon got it wrong. This novel ought to be titled 'The Lives and Love of a She Devil', cause a she-devil may have many lives but she will never have more than one love - herself.
I really enjoyed the first half of this novel. Ruth was easy to identify with, being a giantess myself. I'm 5'9.5'' in a country where the average female is 5' 3.5"; I'm use to feeling like a giantess. To be 6'2" would probably be 10 times more isolating.
What's the moral of this story? There is not one virtuous character. Mary Fisher is redeemed, somewhat. She takes care of her mother and Bobbo's children despite their imposition on the life she worked to create for herself. Despite her love for Bobbo, she does eventually realize that love is not justification for bad behaviour. Mary Fisher's redemption is one of many bitter-sweet themes in this novel. It goes to show that people do learn from their indiscretions.
What's disappointing about this novel is that Ruth gets everything she wants but doesn't learn any real lessons about accepting herself. I would have preferred to see her get her revenge and then realize that it's not that sweet, but I guess that would be a clichéd end.
One of the more remarkable things about this novel are the deep, multi-layered characters Weldon creates. With their interaction with Ruth, each character evolves, although not always for the better. Ruth improves the physical and financial circumstances for many of the secondary characters, while leaving them emotionally weaken and in a darker spiritual place. But I suppose that's what she-devils do.
According to online dictionaries, a she-devil is a woman regarded as extremely wicked or cruel. Ruth is a she-devil. She is cold, unfeeling, diabolical and manipulative. Among her greatest acts of cruelty are abandoning her own children despite knowing the pain of being abandoned by her own parents, convincing other women to sell their children, framing her husband for a crime he didn't commit, manipulating the judge into giving her husband a harsh sentence, and seducing a priest into breaking his vow of celibacy.
Ruth breaks at least six of the ten commandments.
The Life and Loves of a She Devil is a nice easy read about a woman scorned and her revenge on her husband and his mistress. It is both chic-lit and fantasy.
3/5
Trailer for the 1989 movie based of Fay Weldon's The Life and Loves of a She Devil. Roseanne Barr stars as Ruth and Meryl Streep stars as Mary Fisher. While entertaining this film is not as good as the novel, it leaves a lot of the story untold.
Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Jhumpa Lahiri was born in 1967 in London, England, and raised in Rhode Island. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she is also the author of a novel, The Namesake. She lives in New York City.
A Temporary Matter is the story of a young couple trying to come to terms with a stillbirth and a shift in their relationship. One day, they receive a notice informing of a temporary matter - for five days their electricity will be cut for one hour, beginning at 8 p.m. Having spent six months avoiding each other, they decide to spend their hours of darkness sharing secrets.
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When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine is about a young girl's window into the Pakistani Civil War. Lilia is a young girl of Indian descent living in America. Her father is a college professor and her mother works part-time at a bank. In the fall of 1971, Mr. Pirzada of Dacca (an area in Eastern Pakistan) is in America on a grant to study the foliage of New England, starts to take his evening meal and watch the news at Lilia's house. Mr. Pirzada has a wife and seven daughters at home in Dacca. After her father gives her a brief history of India, Dacca, Pakistan and the impending war, Lilia begins to contemplate Mr. Pirzada's predicament - being away from his wife and kids during a war and unable to receive communications from them.
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Interpreter of Maladies is about the day Mr. Kapasi, a part-time tour guide and full-time interpreter of maladies, spends taking the Das, an Indian American family, to India's Sun Temple. As an interpreter of maladies, Mr. Kapasi listens to patients who speak Gujarati, a language not spoken by many people, and translates their symptoms so that the doctor can deliver a diagnosis. Mr. Kapasi thinks the family is odd, like a bunch of siblings rather than a mother, father and three kids. Mr. Kapasi finds himself attracted to Mrs. Das after she describes his work as an interpreter of maladies as 'romantic.'
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A Real Durwan is about Boormi Ma, a 64-year-old stairwell sweeper and the poor tenants of the rundown flat-building, where she sweeps stairs in exchange for shelter underneath letterboxes inside the building's gate. Boormi Ma is fond of sharing stories about the losses she suffered with her deportation to Calcutta after partition. Boormi also likes to tell the tenants about the luxurious life she use to lead. "Believe me, don't believe me, such comforts you cannot even dream them," is how Boormi Ma's stories always end. The tennants of the flat-building don't believe most of Boormi Ma's stories, but are happy with her presence because she keeps their stairwell clean and serves as a guard against mischief seekers. Things begin to change when after a promotion, one of the tenants installs two sinks, one in his apartment and the other in the building's hallway.
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Sexy is about infidelity. Miranda is an American woman secretly involved with a married Bengali-American man. At work, Miranda listens to the story of her Indian-American co-worker Lashmi's cousin's husband's betrayal. Lashmi's cousin's husband fell in love with an English woman, half his age, on a flight from Delhi to Montreal, and decided to get off with the woman at Heathrow, abandoning his wife and son. Miranda's perspective on her relationship changes when she spends an afternoon babysitting Lashmi's cousin's son.
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Mrs. Sen's is about an eleven-year-old American boy's relationship with his Indian babysitter. Eliot's mom seeks a sitter to watch Eliot in their home but ends up agreeing to have Mrs. Sen watch Eliot at her own home after Mr. Sen assures her that Mrs. Sen will have her driver's licence by December. Eliot doesn't mind going to Mrs. Sen's after school. He enjoys watching Mrs. Sen chop vegetables and talk about India and Indian traditions. Mrs. Sen also takes Eliot out to practice her driving. During one of these practice sessions Mrs. Sen gets into an accident.
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This Blessed House is about a newly-married Hindu couple's experience moving into a new house that is littered with Christian paraphernalia. The husband is adamant that since they are not Christians they should get rid of the stuff, but his wife finds the items charming and thinks it would be sacrilegious to throw them out. Their different opinions regarding the items leads the husband to wonder if he made a mistake marrying his wife after knowing her only two months.
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The Treatment of Bibi Haldar is about an Indian woman who suffers from epilepsy. Everyone around her, from family and friends to prophets and fools is baffled by her ailment. No one knows how to cure her. Because of her 'ailment' she's never been able to live a normal life or have what she desires most - a husband. One day after one of her seizures, a doctor at a clinic prescribes "relations will calm her blood." Bibi is delighted and throws herself into preparing for her wedding. There's only one problem, no one has come forward to propose marriage.
The Third and Final Content is about an Indian expatriate's experience in England and the United States.
Joseph Corrigan and Joseph Feehan, better known as Corrie and Fee, make the finest cheese in the entire civilized world. But Corrie still pines for his long-lost granddaughter, Abbey, whisked away from the family farm as a child by her gallivanting mother.
As it happens, Abbey, now twenty-nine and trying to cook a chicken in a primitive hut on a remote South Sea island, is soon to leave her irrigation-obsessed husband after discovering that he has gone biblical with several of the natives.
Meanwhile, a continent away, Kit Stephen is struggling with the loss of his wife and his career as a high-flying Wall Street broker. What this lonely, hungover, and burned-out New Yorker needs is a miracle - fast. Where better to find one than in a distant corner of Ireland, on a dairy farm run by the unlikeliest pair ever to preside over a vat of unpasteurized curd? As Abbey and Kit converge on Coolarney House in County Cork, they discover a marvelous kingdom where something wonderful is always fermenting...where pregnant, vegetarian dairymaids milk cows to "The Sound of Music"...and where a cat named Jesus realizes she just isn't cut out for motherhood. While Corrie and Fee zealously guard the secret of the renowned farmhouse cheese and shelter an odd collection of whisky-soaked men and broken-hearted women, a tantalizing mystery surfaces from the aromatic depths of the factory. Soon Abbey and Kit will find out whether they have what it takes to become master cheesemakers. And something more. For in this magical place where wounds miraculously heal, falling in love is what makes us come truly alive.
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I picked up Blessed are the Cheesemakers at a book and bake sale last year but only started reading it two weeks ago. I'm not sure what attracted me to this novel. My feelings about cheese are about average. I buy it at the grocery store and find it to be a comforting snack. Despite it's mediocre cover and plot summary, Cheesemakers is a good book.
It's populated by a ton of eccentric characters and filled with lots of cheese metaphors. Before reading this book, I had no idea how symbolic of life cheese could be. Some parts of the novel feel rushed and contrived. I question the presence of a lot of the characters. Sarah-Kate Lynch spends half of the novel setting up the main story and then rushes through it. I'm not sure if this book has a climax. Or perhaps, the problem is that the climax occurs really close to the end of the novel, so there isn't a smooth decline into the happily ever after. The happily ever after comes off rushed.
You can't hurry cheese just like you can't hurry love, so then why does Sarah-Kate Lynch appear to do just that in this warm and fragrant novel?
SPOILER ALERT - if you intend to give this book a go, stop reading now!
Sarah-Kate Lynch flips the script much like Marian Keyes' did in Anyone Out There? When it's seem like the novel should be wrapping up, Kit's "dead" wife appears and she's very much alive. Turns out he wanted her dead so he convinced himself that she was dead. In fact she's been in court ordered rehab! I guess if I had read between the lines on the book jacket I would have realized that it said that "Kit was struggling with the loss of his wife", not grieving for his wife. Once you find out that Jacey, Kit's wife, is alive his actions don't add up. Not only that, but the coming back from the dead bit is a cheap trick better left to the soaps.
Despite this, I would definitely recommend this novel. It's a light read, beside how many books are there out there about cheese?
From the book cover: As an Armenian American living in San Francisco, Armanoush feels like part of her identity is missing and that she must make a journey back to the past, to Turkey, in order to start living her life. Aysa is a nineteen-year-old woman living in an extended all-female household in Istanbul who loves Johnny Cash and the French existentialists. The Bastard of Istanbul tells the story of their two families - and a secret connection linking them to a violent event in the history of their homeland. Filled with humor and understanding, this exuberant, dramatic novel is about memory and forgetting, about the need to examine the past and the desire to erase it, and about Turkey itself.
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Elif Shafak is a storytelling and plot building genius. She jumps from continents and perspectives adding mystery and layers.
More than the characters, this novel is about Turkey. After this book was published, Elik Shafak was accused by the Turkish government of 'insulting Turkishness' and could have spent three years in prison, had the charges not been dropped.
Not knowing much about Turkey's history, this novel has awakened a desire to learn more. Jammed packed with characters and themes, it's easy to get distracted.
At the root of this novel is the question: How much does the past determine the future? Elif Shafak appears to answer this question in the closing pages of the novel.
Family stories intermingle in such ways that what happened generations ago can have an impact on seemingly irrelevant developments of the present day. The past is anything but bygone...If Levent Kazanci hadn't grown up to be such a bitter and abusive man, would his only son, Mustafa, have ended up being a different person? If generations ago in 1915 Shushan hadn't been left an orphan, would Aysa today still be a bastard? p. 356
The Bastard of Istanbul isn't for everyone. It took me two tries to get into it. At the close of the first quarter I was hooked despite having to spend a great deal of time trying to figure out how the characters were all connected. The 19-year jump didn't help matters. Nevertheless, I am glad that I made the effort to read this novel.
Novels like this are why I love to read. I've learned about a country and two cultures and hadn't previously given much thought to.
From the book cover: Materena Mahi, a professional cleaner and the best listener in all of Tahiti, is usually the one solving the problems. But right now she is having trouble with her daughter Leilani, who no longer wants to do what her mother tells her. This colourful slice of Tahitian life is filled with wisdom, laughter - and two of the most stubborn women you will ever meet.
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Set on the beautiful island of Tahiti, Célestine Hitiura Vaite's Frangipani is a beautiful story about a mother's relationship with her daughter. The reader is privy to Materena and her female relatives' joys, heartaches and nail-biting fears as they struggle to impart Tahitian traditions, legends, customs and social etiquettes on their daughters.
Vaite is a natural storyteller. Most of the story is told from Materena's perspective with very few exceptions. Materena is an expert in two areas - Tahitian people and cleaning. When some thing is on her mind she picks up her broom. Materena tells her story with colourful details from the lives of her relatives interwoven. There's never a dull moment in the community of Faa'a. There's always some drama being shared at the Chinese store, someone spending more than 10 minutes in the church confession (a sign of an indiscretion of a sexual nature - according the old ladies of Faa'a), or even total strangers sharing their story and hoping for advice from our heroine.
My favourite chapter, titled "into womanhood", features an emotional Materna giving Leilana her 'Welcome into Womanhood' talk. She's so happy she's in tears while Leilani is impatiently asking when her mom will go to the Chinese store for her Kotex. Materna decides not to give Leilana the tradition talk about not washing your hair during your period, not touching plants, trees and flower during your period and making sure to rest. Instead she gives her a Welcome into Womenhood talk for the new century.
“Don’t get married before you have at least one child with your man. Children are the hardest part in a couple’s life. When there are no children, everything is easy, everybody wants to get married. Once there are children, everything changes.”
There's definitely some truth to this, but surely there's got to be another solution than not getting married. She warns Leilana about all of the things that are wrong with Tahitian men but then also warns her against foreign men.
Fragipani is an easy-read. I would definitely recommend it. I fully intend to search for Célestine Hitiura Vaite's other novels Breadfruit and Tiare in Bloom.
From the book cover: When Reece Gilmore witnesses a murder in the mountains above Angel's Fist and tells the local sheriff, he does not believe her. He can't find a body or one shred of evidence. All he can find is that Reece herself has been the victim of a vicious crime and is emotionally unstable. Luckily for Reece, there is one man who believes her - the enigmatic Brody.
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Nora Roberts' Angels Fall is an easy-read romantic suspence hybrid about the romance that blossoms between Reece Gilmore, a traumatized young chef, and Brody, a sexy writer escaping his own demons, as they try to identify a woman Reece saw being murdered.
I can appreciate Reece's nerves and obsessive-compulsive behaviours when the novel opens - it makes sense, considering everything she's been through. What doesn't make sense is the ease with which she falls into a relationship with Brody. She falls in love and puts her trust in Brody too easily, considering everything she's been through - watching and hearing her closet friends being murdered. But at the end of the day this is primarily a romance novel so I guess the hunk and the heroine must get together.
Angels Fall is literary fast food. It provides an escape but doesn't teach any life lessons.
I know Nora Roberts is probably trying to tell the reader about the healing powers of love, but I don't buy it. If this is real life, Reese and Brody, and Lo and Linda-Gail won't last ten years. As Reese continues to heal she'll probably outgrow the perfect life that Brody has planned for them at the close of the novel. Lo will probably end up cheating on Linda-Gail.
2.5/5
Angels Fall is the 2007 made-for-tv movie starring Heather Locklear as Reese Gilmour.
From the book cover: In the wake of a dreadful accident, Anna Walsh is recuperating at her parents' home in Dublin. She is desperate to get back to New York - to her glamorous job as PR assistant for Candy Grrrl cosmetics and to her husband, Aidan, the love of her life. But on her return, Anna is forced to accept that her life will never be the same again.
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Marian Keyes' Anyone Out There? is an easy-read novel about a very difficult topic: grief. I was a quarter way through the novel before I realized that Aidan, our protagonist's husband, was dead. Thankfully, I've never grieved a husband so I can't stay how accurate or 'real' the experience Ms. Keyes describes is. But, I imagine grieving is one of those things where no two experiences are the same.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel, but it is not life altering.
Ms. Keyes paints quite a few colourful characters. Most of them are relegated to secondary status and thus don't undergo significant character growth.
Our heroine's character development is mirrored by her physical and emotional healing. Her physical recovery provides the imagery for her emotional growth and rejuvenation. When we first meet Anna, she is living in her parents living room - dependant on them for everything (feedings, medication and bathing). As the story progresses, Anna moves back to the apartment she shared with her late husband and goes back to work. As her physical condition improves so too does she emotional health. She goes from believing her husband is alive (she calls his cellphone and sends him emails) to acknowledging his death and attempting to contact him through a psychic to finally accepting that he is in a better place and she must continue to live her life. As the novel wraps she accepts her husband's death and is well enough to dance at her sister's wedding.
This novel is very entertaining. It's a great blend of drama and comedy. I can almost see this novel being being made into a movie with Natalie Portman playing the role of Anna Walsh and Ryan Reynolds as Aidan Maddox.
